Attackerman

How Would Secretary Phares Deal With The Arab Spring?

Mario Loyola tries to defend Walid Phares against the force of Adam Serwer's expose. Epic fail. I could quote this response at length, but this graf gets the basic context right:

Loyola insists that Phares' long history with the LF is of no concern because he was part of an organization "committed to resisting Syria's and Hezbollah’s domination of Lebanon (fully in line with longstanding U.S. policy)." Shorter Loyola: It doesn't matter if an organization committed atrocities, as long as it was on the right side. I'm sure the Arab and Muslim countries the US has to deal with will completely understand the distinction should Phares be placed in a high-level position in a future Republican administration.

That's what's really at stake here. If Romney wins, Phares is likely to get a high-level position advising Romney's Mideast policy. Romney wants to help the Arab Spring succeed, which is a worthy goal. It's also a goal surely to be set back by any affiliation with Phares. The idea that the Arab world's democratic forces would embrace a man tied to sectarian massacres of Muslims, and who argued that Christian Arabs are a different ethnic group than Muslim Arabs, doesn't survive a second's worth of scrutiny. It would be a millstone around the Romney administration, the fodder for a million conspiracy theories, and a slam dunk for the Assads and Ahmadinejads of the region.

Phares is fundamentally a problem for Romney. But Romney's committed too many conservative heresies. To sacrifice a leading practitioner of the demogogic "counter-jihad" hysteria would be another mark against him among his base. Can Romney dig himself out of this quagmire? 

The First Step Is Admitting You Were Wrong

I once wrote:

Faced with a disastrous war, the most important consideration is not "Were we wrong?" but "Why were we wrong?" and "How can we avoid being so wrong in the future?" 

It also works the other way. Not every war is a disaster, and so when you predict disaster and a non-disaster emerges, you need to ask yourself the same questions. So my piece for Danger Room on the eve of the successful conclusion of the Libya war:

And so, in the spirit of intellectual honesty, I need to concede that I got the Libya war wrong. Several Danger Room pieces under my byline ran this year predicting that Libya was an open-ended mission, lacked a clear plan for victory, and could lead to NATO peacekeepers battling post-Gadhafi insurgents. While reasonable people can disagree about whether the war was in the U.S. interest (or even legal), or whether President Obama portrayed it honestly, the fact is that the war successfully ended after eight months, contrary to consistent predictions on display here.

We owe it to you to acknowledge forthrightly that we were wrong, and probably too blinded with fears of Iraq 2.0. It’s not just the Pentagon that has trouble with predictions.

I still don't feel the Libya war was in the U.S. interest. But then all the more reason why I think conceding how well it turned out -- not that history ever stops -- is imperative. As long as the U.S. doesn't get sucked into post-Gadhafi Libya, which it seems we won't, then you can chalk up the Libya war as a success, and (reluctant) opponents like myself ought to acknowledge it. 

Also: what's with the Twitter pushback on this admission? Don't we want to live in a media environment where journalists admit their mistakes? 

Kojo

WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi is my favorite radio host, so I'm beyond stoked to say I'll be on his show on Tuesday at 1 p.m. EST talking about drone strikes. Even better, I'll be on with New America's Brian Fishman, one of the few counterterrorism experts who really is a counterterrorism expert. 

Michelle Shephard Is An Undervalued Stock

You know who I want to be when I grow up? Michelle "Snakefighter" Shephard. The Toronto Star's national security reporter is on assignment in Mogadishu and turns in this affecting report about the never-completed work of a city gravedigger:

Twenty minutes after his relatives depart, the body of 4-month-old Abdullahi Ali is carried in. He was born not far from where he is buried, in Kafi's camp, alongside thousands of others displaced by southern famine and fighting.

A third baby, 7-month-old Batulo Mohamed, is lowered into another grave as Kafi continues to dig deeper.

It is now near 9:30 and the sun is high. Today Kafi will get paid, as the pregnant woman's relatives can afford the burial. A cousin brought a stack of bills in a small cloth bag with the words, “I love Somalia.” In a plastic bag, he brought Kafi some bread, water and a banana.

When was the last time you read a piece of journalism so haunting? One that was written as sparingly, or as beautifully? She raises the bar for the rest of us. 

All You Need To Buy A Sword On The Internet Is A Credit Card

True fact: when Ben Miller drunkenly pitches you a pumpkin, you can wield Longclaw to cleave it in two. I have a video of this that I will post once Amanda Mattos gives it to me. 

Jon motherfucking Snow, the greatest of all my Halloween costumes. Photo by Stacy Cline. 

Now, a policy note I feel compelled to append. Longclaw isn't a samurai sword or anything. But it's 50 inches long and hefty. I split an airborne pumpkin in half with ease. The point is that my new sword can hurt someone.

All I needed to purchase it was a credit card. No background check, no nothing. I take a more sanguine view of personal arms control than many of my fellow liberals do. But it fells like something should have made sure I wasn't a psycho before I got delivery of my new sword. 

Great Moments In Lowered Expectations

 An eight-day NATO offensive this month involving 11,000 allied troops and 25,000 Afghan security forces in seven provinces in eastern Afghanistan killed or captured more than 200 Haqqani fighters and commanders, allied officials said; the pressure on the Pakistani side is being generated almost entirely by the drone strikes.

“That’s going to really deter their ability to operate probably for some time, maybe into the winter period,” Lt. Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, the second-ranking allied commander in Afghanistan, said Thursday.

Oy. 

 

This Is The Army's Best Effort At Its Future

The Army's biggest brains assembled Friday in Chantilly, Va., to sketch out geopolitical/economic/environmental scenarios for the next 20 years. It was not pretty. 

If a future of mega-urban war wasn’t bleak enough, panelists also predicted that the end of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would actually lead to an increase in terrorism. “Terrorists and militants engaged with forces in Afghanistan may turn to attacks on U.S. and European soil,” a PowerPoint slide warned. When Danger Room asked them to back up that point — since it implies the wars are failures — Patrick Taitano of the Army’s Materiel Command said he was merely predicting “increased operational planning to conduct attacks.” Feel safer?

Increased terrorism isn’t the only land-based threat America has to fear. A “North Korea implosion” will force the Army to “plan for forcible entry (amphibious, airborne, etc.).” Similar state collapses in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia might compel similar invasions. So might the resurgence of old rivals, like the “drawing together of Germany and Russia because of natural gas,” said the Rand Corporation’s Brian Nichiporuk, “a realignment there, possibly pulling Germany away from NATO.” (Asked by Danger Room about such a profound historical reversal, Nichiporuk quickly backpedaled, “I’m not saying conclusively that Germany and Russia will form an alliance.”)

In case the pattern of such a dangerous world escaped any of the dozens of officers in attendance, a PowerPoint slide left no doubt: The “full capabilities spectrum will still be necessary for the United States Military.”

In other words, a naked grab for budgetary relevance in an age of austerity. My piece describes the "cosmic unfairness" of an Army emerging from ten years of grueling combat only to face questions about its continued relevance. No one should diminish how embittering an experience that is. 

But one can only imagine what it must be like for a Navy or Air Force officer to listen to these paranoid fantasies of the future, when the plausible missions for the U.S. military involve the great blue Pacific. And the secretary of the Army says he'll resist any attempts to deviate from the math-not-strategy budgetary agreement that the services share budgetary pain equally. 

The Altalena In Reverse

I've just finished reading Gershom Gorenberg's excellent forthcoming book The Unmaking of Israel. I'll write a separate post delving into it and grappling with what Gorenberg proposes will lead to what he calls "The Reestablishment of Israel," but for now, let's focus on an unrepresentative section of the text.

The Unmaking of Israel is a clincal, mostly dispassionate investigation into the unraveling of Israel under the corrupting stress of occupying Palestinian territory for 44 years. His thesis is a familiar one from 20th century experiences worldwide: Zionism had a difficult transition from revolutionary movement to institutional governance, and the aftermath of the Six Day War allowed it to defer that final reconciliation. I say mostly dispassionate because while Gorenberg writes to persuade and not to inflame, he has flashes of passion. The fate of the Israel Defense Forces causes one of them. 

First, a bit of context. Every student in Jewish day school in the diaspora learns about something called The Altalena Affair. To make a long story short, the Altalena was a weapons shipment for the rightist paramilitary called the Irgun, which had little problem committing terrorism. After Israel declared statehood in May 1948, the Irgun was supposed to be incorporated into what became the Israel Defense Forces, the national military. In reality, there was an unsettled political arrangement about how to integrate the Irgun's leadership into the new civilian government and politics of Israel. As long as that ship could keep the Irgun armed, the rightists would have an armed option if politics didn't shake out their way; the new state wouldn't have a monopoly on violence; and the young state of Israel would be at risk of civil war. So in a tense operation in and around Tel Aviv, the new IDF shelled the Altalena and effectively settled the question. 

We learn about the Altalena in Hebrew school for a few reasons. One is to so kids understand that difficult and painful steps -- Jew attacking Jew -- are necessary if a broader interest is at stake. Another, uglier lesson is that Jews take these steps and decide against being terrorists, while Palestinians don't. Tribalism has an ugly side. 

Anyway, Gorenberg spends a chapter on the relationship between the West Bank settlers and the military and distills it into three passionate paragraphs that bear excerpting.

[A] vicious cycle is at work. Israel continues to hold the West Bank and expand settlements. Policing occupied territory and protecting settlers are military burdens, increasing the need for combat soldiers and officers who have no qualms about the occupation. To meet that need, the army depends ever more on recruits from the religious right. Yet this increases the danger of fragmenting the military when an Israeli government finally does decide to pull out of the West Bank.

For politicians, this is one more reason to postpone difficult, necessary decisions. The longer they wait, though, the greater the risks. The problem is not one of individual conscientious objectors. There are already whole units that the IDF fears using. As men who believe in the inviolable sanctity of the Whole Land of Israel climb the ladder of command, possibilities loom that are worse than refusal: outright mutiny, even decisions by senior officers to deploy their units to prevent withdrawal.

Watching this process is like watching a film of the Altalena run in reverse: the smoke returns to the ship, the shell to the cannon. The opposition unloads its arms at the Kfar Vitkin beach. Israel evolves backward, returning to the moment of a fragile state facing an armed faction dedicated to fantasies of power and expansion.

There is a reason that the second chapter in Gorenberg's book is called "Remember the Altalena." Gorenberg, a religious Israeli, desperately wants his country to remember one of its finest hours and act accordingly.

World Is Dead, Like I Told You So

It's the world's greatest holiday this weekend, so let's start an argument. Earth A.D.: underrated record, right? Clearly the most hardcore Misfits album, it's got none of the mystery or coolness of Static Age, none of the punk of Walk Among Us, none of the iconicism of the Legacy of Brutality collection. Or! Maybe it's got all of that together, just played really fast?

All I know is when my dog lays his weary muzzle on my leg to take a nap, I scratch behind his ear and whisper the lyrics to "Hellhound" to him.  

Recognizing A War Is Not The Same As Expanding One

This Maz Hussain post critiquing my Pakistan rant proceeds from an incorrect premise but still makes some good points. First:

In effect Ackerman recommends launching full scale war with Pakistan...

Nope. I argued that the U.S. should continue the drone war it's already waging while cutting off aid to Pakistan and realigning policy to favor India. The lattermost part of the proposal would probably be more damaging to Islamabad than keeping the drone war going. I do not mean to diminish the prospect of air strikes in denied air space, especially as U.S. strategy grows more hostile to Pakistan. But it's just not the case that I'm proposing about any military action the U.S. is not currently taking.

What's more, all Pakistan has to do to reverse this U.S. tilt is to stop helping insurgents kill Americans, something that Hussein doesn't address. At this point, Pakistan is simply telling the U.S. that it won't take meaningful action against the terrorist safe havens while enjoying our F-16s and billions in aid money. That is an unacceptable posture that the Obama administation unaccountably tolerates. If Pakistan is to change its behavior, some external pressure has to compel it to do so. 

Hussain's broader point is a good one: that rather than confronting Pakistan, the U.S. ought to recognize that it's letting the Afghanistan war's tail wag its policy toward the Pakistan dog. He's right. Afghanistan strategy -- or the flailing series of measures that passes for one -- is determining U.S. actions in the whole region. And that has to stop. Indeed, reduce U.S. forces to what's necessary to ensure the Afghan security apparatus can survive and what's necessary to support a smaller, more focused drone war on the real irritant to U.S. security interests, the safe havens in tribal Pakistan.

Ah, except Hussain contradicts himself. He wants to see the U.S. end the Afghanistan war, admirably. But he locates the origins of Pakistan's complicity in terrorism in an odd place: 

The U.S. is planning their exit strategy from Afghanistan, however Pakistan will never be able to “exit” from the region and as such has to live with whatever government is in power in Kabul and with whatever non-state actors are operating on its territory and beyond.

So what's the U.S. supposed to do? Continue the war and stay in the region to placate Pakistan? Or end the war that's supposed to be the big irritant to Pakistan, bring U.S. troops home from the region, and blithely accept continued Pakistani terrorism? The Pakistanis need to resolve this basic contradiction in their stated demands for themselves. They should not expect another dollar in U.S. aid -- including spare parts for the fighter jets their pilots fly -- until they do. And perhaps a frostier U.S. posture, perhaps, can sharpen the choices before Islamabad.